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| Charitable Causes |
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Hearts out to Haiti |
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Hearts out to Haiti is a mission program of the Holy Name
of Jesus Church in Indialantic, FL. It supports the children and
people of three sister parishes in Haiti, including Les Palmes,
Morne a Chandelle, and Durissy. The focus of the ministry
is on education. It builds schools and buys textbooks for the
children of these villages, pays annual salaries for 125 teachers, and
supports several students who have moved on to university studies in Port
au Prince by paying tuition and room/board. In addition, it conducts
Vacation Bible School programs in the villages, conducts semi-annual
de-worming for the children, and pays the salary of a full-time nurse to
help ensure the children are healthy enough to learn. The mission is
staffed by volunteers who pay for all their own expenses and
administrative costs of the ministry -- including paying their own airfare
and lodging when on their frequent mission trips to Haiti -- so 100% of
all donations are used solely to support the people of these three
villages. The work of this ministry is directed toward giving the
children of Haiti the tools with which to build a better life for
themselves and the next generation -- to break the cycle of poverty and
allow the people of these villages to become self-sufficient. The
terrible earthquake in Haiti has wreaked untold damage on every kind of
structure in the country -- homes, schools, churches, businesses, even
government buildings -- and killed or injured hundreds of thousands of
Haitians. In Morne a Chandelle, the only building left
standing is the school built by the ministry. As a result of this
catastrophe, the mission has adjusted its immediate focus to bring aid to
those injured and left homeless by the earthquake. While large
international aid organizations are rushing aid to Port au Prince,
the small villages in the hills are largely overlooked -- by the media
reports and the aid workers. Hearts out to Haiti is accepting
donations of money, medical supplies, and food and organizing their
delivery to the people of these villages.
Please help by making
an on-line donation (PayPal or Credit Card) to support the victims of the
Haitian earthquake. Also, private pilots interested in donating
their planes and services to the ministry are encouraged to contact the
ministry at 321-773-2783. |
| Habitat
for Humanity |
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Habitat for Humanity is an international organization
committed to building safe, decent housing for the poor in America and
around the world. Although it is a ecumenical Christian ministry, it
builds homes for anyone in need regardless of religious background.
Using volunteer labor along with donations of money and materials, Habitat
builds homes and sells -- not gives -- them to families in need.
Buyers of Habitat homes must invest hundreds of hours volunteering to help
build homes for other families in order to qualify for their own home.
They must make a modest down payment and then monthly payments to Habitat,
which holds the mortgage but charges no interest on the loan. You
can help Habitat by donating
money or simply volunteering your time to help build a home. No
specific skills are required; you can learn "on the job" from professional
builders who volunteer to oversee the construction of each home. By
volunteering you will gain knowledge you can use to maintain your own
home, while also helping to change lives for the better, and provide
families with a foundation from which they can build a better live for
themselves. This is a great example of the "hand up, not hand-out"
charitable method. |
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Literacy Volunteers of America / ProLiteracy America |
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ProLiteracy America (formerly Literacy Volunteers of
America) trains volunteers to be literacy tutors, to teach adults with
poor or no reading skills to read. Many American adults simply never
learned to read or to read well. For many, this hinders their search
for gainful employment and has a negative affect on the reading skills of
their children. A great many of these low- or non-literate Americans
have over time acquired other skills to compensate for their inability to
read -- to the point that you may have a co-worker or neighbor who cannot
read and not even know it. I personally tutored a man who worked in
a factory fixing manufacturing equipment, but could read only a few words
by sight. He would secretly take home technician's manuals on each
piece of equipment in his workplace and have his wife read them to him at
night. Eventually, he had memorized each manual, and could open any
manual to a page and begin "reading" the page -- from memory, as he could
not actually read a word on the page. Illiteracy robs adults of
their time, talent, and dignity. You can help Americans lean to read
by
donating money or by becoming a literacy volunteer. In doing so,
you will provide them with the means to make better lives for themselves
and their families. |
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tuned...
